


Do I have to grow up?

by SpikeyGirl



Series: Through the portal [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon Related, Crossover, F/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Many of them, Ninjas go to Hogwarts, or at least he tries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpikeyGirl/pseuds/SpikeyGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this had been a game, then the hidden continents would have been the Tutorial Area compared to what is to come for our protagonists.</p>
<p>This is not a game.</p>
<p>There are no save points, no pause, no restarts.</p>
<p>Max and Laura may have thought they were prepared for this, but only time will tell if they can stay afloat on this version of Earth. To survive they must become stronger and wiser. Giving up is not an option, surrender is not a word in their vocabulary and they certainly do not take prisoners. Sometimes they need reminding of these facts.</p>
<p>More epic crossovers and madness, most get explained so you don't need to be familiar with all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back on Earth

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read part one, I would really recommend you do, or none of this will make sense. 
> 
> The Laura: Forensic Investigator Ninja is not required to understand this though.

The journey was practically instantaneous and Max took her first step on Earth in about 7 years, she looked around absorbing everything and making sure it would be safe for the group, she closed her eyes and did a sweep of the floors using FA. She deemed it safe and held the radio up to her face.

"This is Kage Ookami calling BossWoman, other side of the puddle is not a threat, proceed as planed," she said, making sure she was out of the way, a few seconds later the rest of them emerged each looking around in amazement at the concrete and the lights behind the window. Max could only imagine what they were thinking.

They were escorted to the medical bay for a check up, standard procedure. Max had very nearly pegged it back and hidden but Tsunade had glared at her.

Doctor Lamb had checked them over and found nothing wrong, she had been a bit apprehensive over the scars on Max's back and had been inquisitive about how she got them. Max had just replied in her usual "I was doing my job" but got tutted at, Max practically ran out once her examination was over.

Behind her Tsunade and Doctor Lamb were discussing medical things with Laura translating, Laura was actually interested so didn't mind. The others who had escaped were heading over to the assigned rooms.

\----

The next day everyone convened in the briefing room, it was a bit crowded, only the people taking part in the treaty talks were seated and the guards were standing behind.

From Suna was Gaara with some elders, three ANBU and his sister, he had left Kankurou in charge. From Amestris, the FMA crew were present, Roy and Maes were the negotiators the others acting as guards and from Konoha was Tsunade and two elders. Max and Itachi were their primary guards, the others were mainly for show of strength.

Max and Itachi were in their full uniform without cloaks to show the tattoos, bits of Max's scars were visible, Itachi had his Sharingan on which was visible through the eye holes as they basically glowed. Their masks were polished uniform spotless. Visible weapons were forbidden from the room, everyone had been checked on their way in.

Kakashi was wearing his ANBU uniform as well as he had been reinstated for this mission only. Kakashi and Itachi flanked the Hokage while the others stood a bit back. Max was stood between the Hokage's group and Kazekage's groups ready to translate, she had skewed her mask so she could speak quietly.

The genin also wore cloaks with the hoods down, they didn't need masks and it would show some trust. They stood behind the people they were to protect as they had been assigned. 

The president of the USA, two of his cronies and a bunch of SWAT looking people were sat across the table. The Prime Minister of England had two of his cronies and another bunch of SAS looking people next to them. The Minister for Magic for some reason was there, and had two more cronies, including the headmaster of Hogwarts (Max could tell by the extremely long beard) and some Aurors were also on the other side. Max was grateful for all the time she'd spent reading or watching TV, it gave her that extra edge. 

General Hammond sat at the head of the table with SG1 behind him. "In front of you is a the treaty to the point we have all currently agreed." said Hammond, Max was translating for the Hokage and Kazekage groups while Laura was translating for the Roy and Maes, every one nodded.

"As mentioned we would like to set up a small base of operations on your world so that we can learn more of your ways and have a safe back up base, in return we will allow some of your people to come to Earth to learn about our culture and also teach you about some of our advancements in technology," said the president which was backed up by the prime minister, once again Max and Laura translated.

"What about the man in the bowler hat with the ancient person next to him? Who are they any way?" asked Tsunade frowning, introductions should have been made for them like they had for everyone else but hadn't, Max translated it into English for every ones sake.

"We are wizards. I am the Minister for Magic and this is Headmaster Dumbledore. We are here to make sure there is no threat to our society and see what skill you have," said the man with the bowler hat dismissivly. He didn't seem worried about his blunt and rude statement.

"And what if there is a threat?" Max asked before she could stop herself. Laura translated for both languages.

"You will be obliviated and sent back," was the pompous reply.

"This is assuming you can hit one of us."

"Now, now I think you got of on the wrong foot," placated the old man his eyes twinkling. "Your skills could be of use to use, I understand you hire yourselves out for jobs," he said. Max sighed, this could get messy if the wizards didn't start showing respect.

"It has been stated in the draft that we may be hired for contracts as long as it is deemed worthy of our time. If you had been invited to the earlier meetings you would have known for certain."

The negotiating went on for hours but finally they came to and agreement, Max and Laura had been quick to point out flaws so the villages would benefit, if the Earth delegates weren't good enough that was their problem.

\----

Most of them had gone straight back to their residence after the meeting finished. Max was with Tsunade who had wanted to go to the medical bay to have another chat which Max would have to translate, Laura had been waylaid by the other group to translate. They were on their way back to their quarters when the old man confronted them.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I have a request for mission to protect a boy, money is no object," said the old man, Max translated quickly.

"I will hear you request," said Tsunade. 'Hear but not necessarily agree to' she thought as Max once again translated.

"I need a group of ninja; they will be going to Hogwarts, my school, to protect a boy, they need to be between 11 and about 14 by the summer. The mission will last for a school year where they will attend classes with other students. Additional years may be required but they will get opportunities to return home. You will be paid half at the beginning of each year and half at the end. Payment will be an appropriate amount of gold and silver," explained the headmaster, Max translated her hopes were soaring, she wanted to go on this mission it would be awesome.

"I assume not every one is a wizard so why chose us?" asked Tsunade. Max didn't bother to translate, instead, explaining it as she figured it was. There was no way Dumbledore would have a clue.

"From what I have observed, magic is the spiritual energy side of chakra, the wand compensates for the physical side but doesn't truly replace it which is why magic has the different limitations. It's also why not all people can use chakra, they don't have the spiritual energy or magic genes," Max explained.

She knew it was just a wild guess but it was entirely plausible and the best guess. Tsunade nodded and told her to let Dumbledore know she was open to negotiate terms. Poor Max got stuck translating until she snapped.

"You're a wizard don't you have a spell to translate?" she half yelled. Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a second them nodded.

"If you would ask for permission," he prompted and Max complied, Tsunade nodded and then voila they could understand each other and Max didn't have to translate, she still stuck around, not trusting the old wizard. They continued talking, ironing out the details. To Max it seemed to be like a load of fanfictions where the ninjas would get hired to protect Harry Potter. she knew it wouldn't turn out like that, not with her around. Dumbledore and Tsunade agreed to meet again tomorrow to write up the contract and each headed their own ways after Dumbledore lifted the translating spell. Back in Tsunade room she turned to Max.

"You seem to know a lot more about this place than I do, I'm not going to ask why or how, Sarutobi told me not to bother, but I will be relying on your advice for this," she said, Max was glad she have to make up a reason for how.

"I would recommend it, not only does it pay well but the shinobi assigned will learn new things that they can teach people back home and protect the village better," said Max with a shrug. Tsunade nodded in agreement.

"Max you will be reinstated as ANBU again for this mission as Ookami. You're the team leader with Ryuu as back up until such time he is recalled and you'll be taking some genin with you, we can't afford to loose too many shinobi. On this mission you will be as two people, you ANBU self and your chunin self, use a clone for one of them, I don't care which but I need an ANBU presence to oversee but I need you amongst them as well, " Tsunade ordered.

"Ok. I suggest Shikamaru, Neji, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, and Ino. They're young enough to start in first year and so not need to catch up with the year. Neji's a genious so will easily make up the work. I would ask for the rest of Neji's team but Lee cant use chakra and Tenten relies to heavily on weapons, Choji would stick out a bit too much while his team mates would be useful, Ino can use the mind techniques, if it's needed, and Shikamaru can use the shadows. The others are kind of obvious. If I can, at least Gaara and Temari from sand and Laura due to her ability to analyse things, Gaara could take a sabbatical from Kazekage work."

"I'll have to ask about the sand siblings. Don't you want to take your team?"

"Why would I want to do that? They might recognise me, they may know I was ANBU but they didn't know my code name and if Sasuke knows I'm there as ANBU, he might find out who my partner is, there will be trouble that I don't want to deal with."

"Take your team. And stop pouting. If Sasuke finds out I am authorising you to tell him the secret. I also ask you to take Sakura with you so she can learn about the medic side of wizardry." Max was inwardly cursing; Sakura was going to be annoying and Tsunade might get annoyed if Sakura accidentally died.

\----

A week passed and everything was sorted. In the summer they would go to England to prepare for the mission but until then Hammond had agreed to let SG1 take them around the USA, so the could get used to Earth. They all had passports through connections at the Pentagon so it would all be legal and they had sealed all their weapons in scrolls so metal detectors wouldn't become and issue. For the beginning of the mission Itachi and Max's clones had henged identities for convenience.

They did the necessary shopping, clothes and other assorted bits they would need for their mission from the non-magical world. They had a generous budget courtesy of Dumbledore's payment of the first half. That budget had doubled when they had wandered off to Las Vegas, henged into people in their mid twenties and gone gambling. Naruto had nearly cleaned the house out with his luck before they kicked them out, so funding for the rest of the trip was no problem. Laura and Max had been careful to oversee what the others bought and made sure they weren't getting ripped off.

Max had wandered off for some time alone and came across a dead body, being careful to avoid touching it she backed away and wandered some more, drinking up the feeling of a big city.

One of the nights they had gone to the nearest shop and bought all the caffeinated drinks they could and headed to the nearest park for some team building time. During that time Max and Laura remembered why they had never let Naruto have caffeine.

All too soon they were on an aeroplane to England. Max and Laura were excited to be going back to the country of their birth, well as near as possible with out going to their real dimension. They got to the airport in England and argued over what to do.

"I want to go shopping."

"We should familiarise ourselves with this place."

"I'm hungry."

"I need to pee," commented Laura.

"We really needed to know that," Max commented dryly.

"Yes everyone wants to know about your peeing habits," added Kiba.

"Of course they do everyone loves knowing about my peeing habits, it's the highlight of the day," was the dramatic reply from Laura.

In the end they decided to spit into a few groups, wander London and meet up at Diagon alley in a few hours.

Max and Laura decided to go to Surrey, it wasn't staying in london like they'd told the others to do, but they wanted to visit where they used to live. Itachi tagged along otherwise the others might have driven him nuts or figured out his identity. 

They went to where Max would have lived first and saw in the window her four siblings and her parents sitting around the table eating and laughing. There was no sign of a fifth child, apparently she didn't exist in this world. She didn't know what hurt more, the fact they were fine without her or if in her world it would have been better if she hadn't been around. She was regretting coming already.

At where Laura would have lived they saw her parents and her little brother still alive, apparently she didn't exist either. Itachi was just confused he didn't understand why they were here but hey, most of what they did made little sense.

They made their way back to London to meet with the others and spent the night in the Leaky Cauldron ready to go to Hogwarts for their final briefing in the morning.


	2. Diagon Alley

By the time the sun rose all of the ninjas had been up for at least an hour and had eaten. Max sat staring at a wall, she had managed to get less sleep than the rest of them.

(Last night)

Max had been wandering around London, she had been walking around for ages, she hadn't been able to sleep and walking took her mind of things. She had changed into some jeans and a tee shirt to blend in. The shop she had got them from only just had them in her size. She wasn't paying attention to her surroundings much but so far had been lucky not to walk into anything.

To say she was surprised when she walked into someone would be understated. She looked at the person she had walked into to see a young blond guy, about 14 years old. He had just walked out of a bank and these things had set of warning bells in her mind.

"Sorry I wasn't looking where I was going," she apologised keeping her head down and continued walking. Considering creating a clone to follow him.

"It's fine. Aren't you a bit young to be walking around on your own?" the boy asked. Max cursed in her head as she pause in her stride, she still looked ten. Normal she would have put a Henge on to make her look older not just to cover her ears.

"I look young for my age, besides I could say the same about you."

"I can handle myself," he said as he went stepped down of the pavement to call a taxi. Max heard the tell-tale crack of a gun and reacted moving her arm in front of him to push him out of the way, an instinct that she thought she had suppressed, the bullet hit glanced off the underside of her arm. It continued into the boys chest but Max's arm had deflected it down so it pierced his lung lower rather than closer to his heart where she estimated it would have gone. The boy crumpled and Max caught him laying him down so she could do what she was able to. She kept talking to him to keep him awake, just like she had learnt in a first aid course in the other universe. She was all too aware of how open the area was, if the sniper took another shot she wouldn't have any cover.

"Keep awake. What's your name?"

"Alex."

"I'm Max, where do you live?" she pressed her hands on the wound to stem the blood flow; she wished she had remembered a jacket or something. Then she remembered her bandana she'd been using instead of her headband and she folded it up to press on the wound. She had ignored her own cut from the bullet because she knew it would be fine eventually.

"Chelsea," he replied weakly.

"Like the football team? Come on, keep with me. Who do you live with?"

"My house keeper, Jack." She could tell he was struggling to keep awake. Some people had come out of the building and were calling an ambulance. It arrived soon and the boy was taken away. Max was approached by a woman in a business suit.

"I'm Mrs Jones; where are your parents? I need you to come with me to answer some questions."

Max did the only thing she could in the current situation, look scared and run. She was careful not to run full speed but it wasn't really slow, mostly just dodging any attempts at grabbing her until she was out of sight at least then she practically disappeared at the speed she was running.

She made it back to the inn in no time at all. In her head another story was ticked of the list, she had met Alex Rider.

The rest of the night Max spent star gazing with Gaara. She never knew how much she had missed the stars from Earth; the familiar constellations sparkled down at them as she pointed out the ones she remembered.

\----

The morning had come and the twelve of them were ready to floo to Hogwarts for their briefing. They were in their normal ninja gear, only Max's clone and Itachi were in ANBU uniform. Most of the ninjas had been apprehensive of the way of transport but Max had shown it was fine. Her clone was a bit difficult to transport so she made it go last.

In the headmasters office they were greeted by an office devoid of human life with a bird on a perch. A door near the back opened and the headmaster entered the office and sat in his chair.

"You have been selected by the Hokage for the mission then?" he asked. Max's ANBU clone, being team leader, was their spokesperson stepped forward nodding. "You mission is generally to look out for the students wellbeing but mainly after one particular boy who I will point out later. Hogwarts will also be protecting something of great importance so that will be a secondary objective. Student will be informed of the visible guards and I would advise you keep your skills discrete."

"Do we have to wear the uniforms? They would interfere with our abilities," asked Ino. Max translated, Dumbledore seemed to think for a bit.

"Your point is a good one but I ask you wear at least the robes for the special occasions, your illusion technique should suffice for the rest of the time. I also have a bracelet for each of you to wear so you can understand English," he said offering them up as Max translated. They took them except those who already understood English. They asked a few questions and got their answers, some more vague than others. They were escorted to their temporary rooms by a sour professor Snape. Max and Itachi had been kept behind to get some of the finer details.

"Oh and you will be joined by Edward Elric and Roy Mustang. Roy will be teaching basic alchemy and Edward will be joining the third years. Try too keep students away from the third floor corridor. Also allow Harry to explore a bit during time he may not be supposed too."

"Ok," said Max cutting of anything that Itachi would say. She had a plan. And she had a way of justifying it. The contract said to protect Harry Potter at all costs and that's what they would do, whether it's from trolls or manipulative headmasters didn't matter. They left the room to find the others. Now alone Dumbledore was musing to himself, unaware that Max had left an invisible clone.

"This is going well. Not only will I have Harry under my control but the ninjas will become allies and when the battle comes the will have little choice but to help." Gone was the old man persona and in its place was a manipulative man. Unfortunately for him Max's clone was there to spy on him. Paranoia wasn't always a bad thing. Maybe asking Shino to set up a network around the castle with his bugs was a bit excessive but in the name of safety for her team, she would do it.

\----

They went to their rooms and had a small meeting but not before moving all of the portraits from the room as Max's request. Each of them understood what was going on and what they would do. None of them like being manipulated and manipulating a child who they had put in an abusive household was a big black mark in their books.

Max was wandering around in her normalish form, familiarising herself with the castle with Laura when they bumped into everyone's favourite potions master

"Watch where you're going," snapped Snape.

"I was, I just wasn't paying much attention," said Max.

"Don't get smart with me."

"I get smart perfectly well on my own. Hey, you're one of the teachers, what do you teach?" Laura asked eagerly, she knew, she just wasn't supposed to.

"Potions… why?"

"You teach glorified cooking!" Both 11 year olds burst out giggling at their joke, no amount of glaring stopped them. When they had composed themselves Snape didn't look happy.

"I'll have you know potions is more than just cooking it includes understanding the ingredients and why things happen," the man sniffed indignantly.

"It's kind of like chemistry," mused Max.

"What would you two know about chemistry, I though in the muggle world they didn't teach chemistry until they were about 13, whereas you two are barely eleven."

"We're very intelligent pains in the backside, we could do a GCSE in chemistry and pass with top marks that's the equivalent of an O at OWL level, we also started on AS which is like the first year of NEWTS."

"I expect you two to excel in my class then."

"Only if you teach it well." They continued heir conversation for a while; it appeared Snape wasn't as bad as they thought, maybe it was just kids of a school time crush and school time bully that got the bad end of it. They would keep an eye on him during the term.

\----

The next day they were in Diagon alley picking up their stuff. They had changed into their casual clothes and Max's ANBU clone and Itachi had masks on but a Henge covered that fact as was becoming normal.

They went to Gringotts and got in a queue, Dumbledore had set up a vault for them to use with some of the payment deposited but when they got to the front the goblin was sleeping. Looking at the man who had just left it want hard to see why, he looked like a stuffy man.

Max leant over the desk to shake the sleeping goblin he suddenly woke, baring sharp teeth. Reflexively Max withdrew her hand accidentally catching a spike used for magical identification. The scroll in front of the goblin listed a vault. Vault two, belonging to Morgan le Fay. The goblins eyes shot out and he quickly summoned a higher authority.

"Aw great, I can't go anywhere without doing something big," complained Max sarcastically, setting aside this new knowledge for later investigation. The rest tried but not much happened until it was Laura time and it came up with vault three belonging to Circe the enchantress. Of course it did. They had to wonder it Louise had been there, if she would have got someone.

They went to vault two, finding out they really didn't need ot dip into the other fund, gold coins were neatly stacked, Max looked at the other contents of the vault trying to avoid just staring at the shear about of gold. There were a few books which caught her eye, including a biography.

"According to my research Morgan le Fay along with Circe decided to leave Earth so they travelled through a portal and were never heard of again, they came to my home planet and meet the natives. They were proficient at martial arts; they taught each other when they discovered combining the physical energy and spirit energy created a source of power called chakra. Over the years they developed its uses into attacks and became what we know as ninjas and ninjutsu most of the ninjas are descended from her but at some point a group split off, they were alchemists and made their own way of life far away so that's where the alchemist come from, A while later when wars broke out the two of them went back through that portal ad that where this stopped updating," summarized Max, another thing to blame education for, she could skim read something picking out the important aspects like she had during lessons when she planned on not paying attention.

They took a few items of interest and a few books that had interesting titles and of course enough gold for their purchases. As soon as they were back in the alley they split the money up and agreed to meet back in two hours.

Max and Laura walked it Flourish and Blotts with their money bags and immediately set to work scowering the shelves for anything of interest. So into the basket went quite a lot of books mainly ones on offensive and defensive magic and on Animagus forms, remembering it from their original lives when they had read the books.

They went to the apothecary Max recoiling in horror at the smell but barely showing it, after getting the basic ingredients they discreetly asked about muggle chemicals, remembering some of the more interesting ones from a short A-level taster course in Chemistry they'd attended. They were led to the back room and shown a large collection of chemicals.

They picked out a large selection, in their heads all the possibilities were exploding, most of these were at the very least monitored. They carefully stored them in scrolls before moving on.

They got their stationary which is where they bumped into Harry and Hagrid. "Are you going to Hogwarts too? I'm Max by the way and this is Laura," asked Max despite the fact she knew the answer. She often had to remind herself not to mention to much 'Meta' knowledge.

"Yes. I'm Harry."

"I can't wait, hey do you think your friend would let you come shopping with us, it would be better with people your own age."

"I'd have to ask." He disappeared for a bit and came back with Hagrid in tow. He took one look and agreed, Dumbledore had informed him about the ninjas.

"Cool, so what have you got already?" Things went swimmingly from then Harry seemed very quite and reminded them of Hinata before they got her to come out of her shell.

They went to the robe shop next they still needed cloaks. Inside they saw Draco getting fitted.

"Are you Hogwarts to?" he asked, they nodded.

"My mothers looking at books and my fathers looking at ingredients, what about you?"

"My parents are dead," said Harry.

"I don't know about mine, I haven't seen them since I was three" said Laura.

"Same," added Max.

"Your parent were our kind right?"

"You're asking the direct descendant of Morgan le Fay?" said Max, she couldn't help but throw it around a bit, Draco looked impressed even when Max told him not to tell anyone. Laura just sighed at the blatant showing off. Max was looking for potential allies for later.

"My parents were wizards too," said Harry.

"I really don't know but most of the people from where were from are magical but as far as I know being a descendant of Circe makes me pretty good," said Laura, if Max could do it so could she.

"Which house do you think you'll be in? I do hope I'm in Slytherin," said Draco, trying to kept the conversation going.

"I wouldn't mind, it may have a bad reputation but it isn't all that bad," commented Max.

"What do you mean by house?" asked Harry meekly.

"At Hogwarts there are four houses when you get there you get sorted into one of them, there are Gryffindor the brave, Hufflepuff the loyal, Ravenclaw the smart, and Slytherin the cunning, none are perfect and none are evil," explained Laura.

"Yeah, the Gryffindor are arrogant and headstrong. The Hufflepuff are generally not as brash but more meek. The Ravenclaw have a superiority complex as in; if you aren't smart we don't want to know and finally Slytherin are just considered evil and sly," Max added her two cents.

"Let me guess your going to be Ravenclaw," supposed Draco.

"Nope, like I said; Slytherin for me."

"How about we make a bet on it if I win and your in Ravenclaw then you have to do my homework for a week of my choosing?"

"If I win then you have to be my slave for a week of my choosing?"

"What about if she's in another house like Hufflepuff, she is really loyal," added Laura wanting in on this bet.

"She could be Gryffindor, being brave to accept the bet," said Harry.

"How about this who ever wins gets the others to do something for a week of their choosing," proposed Laura.

"Why just me? Why not where someone else is going to end up?"

"You started it," said Harry pointing the obvious.

"Fine," Max said as they shook in a four way hand shake. This is how Draco's parents found them.

"I do hope you aren't associating with muggleborns."

"At least I'm not so inbred I have six toes per foot," retorted Max.

"Ah touché, I am Lucius Malfoy of the ancient and noble house of Malfoy," said Mr. Malfoy smirking at her.

"I am Max Hakie of Konoha, descendant of Morgan le Fay and these are my friends, Harry Potter of the ancient and noble house of Potter and Laura Hakie of Konoha descendant of Circe the enchantress" replied Max.

"Wait, what about me being of a noble house?" asked Harry confused, the others gasped.

"To the bank!" declared Max and they trooped of to show him. They got it all sorted out but unfortunately there was nothing declaring Sirius' innocence. Max could wait until third year.

Next they went to the broomstick shop because Draco dragged them.

"Why would we be interested in a game that involves balls and hoops and broomsticks, it sound dirty and wrong and vaguely dangerous," said Laura the two boys just looked confused.

"They're only 11 remember," pointed out Max. By the end of the visit they knew everything there was to know about Quidditch.

Last stop was Ollivanders; the group piled in and watched as the old man appeared between them and the counter. In turn they got their wands, Harry taking the longest and getting the story about its brother.

Once again they headed back to the leaky cauldron to deposit there stuff. Harry went with Hagrid to Privet Drive despite their protests. Draco went home but they promised to meet up on the train. Max and the rest of them described their experiences and how wizards were stupidly backwards while they ate out in normal London, they were careful to not directly mention wizards else they bring on the wrath of the Ministry, that could wait a few years.

Naruto wouldn't shut up about broomsticks until Max hit him round the back of the head with a mysteriously appearing frying pan. The others at least kept it to a reasonable level of noise 

Max spent the night on the roof talking to Gaara until she fell asleep from exhaustion. Itachi had gone up to make sure they were alright and ended up talking to Gaara, with Max sleeping between them, until the sun came up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Morgan La Fey thing does come up again, I didn't just stick it in for the sake of it.


	3. I like trains (Max doesn't)

Max really didn't want to get onto that train; she didn't fear them they just made her sick if she paid to much attention. Her clone however had no problems, because she could do that and it was the easiest way of not making it obvious it was actually just her. She had decided for the journey she would be her normal self but switch at random points for short periods. Her clone would look older and defiantly taller.

Laura for some reason loved trains. They had gotten to the station early to scope out the train for potential risks, checking each carriage before deeming it safe. They grabbed carriages while there were some still free each one held about eight people unless they were extremely obese. Ed had joined them; Roy was already at the castle.

About half an hour before the train was due to leave Max decided she was hungry so went to grab some doughnuts and a coffee from the non-magical side. Sasuke had followed along with Naruto, Gaara and Shikamaru.

They barely made it back in time because Naruto had taken so long choosing and had to search for a new compartment since some seventh years had taken theirs. They found one with Harry in. Max had changed back to her ANBU persona, she had been switching every hour and this hour was ANBU time, deciding that it was easier to be nosy in a mask.

Max, Gaara, Shikamaru, Ed, Sasuke and Naruto looked inside a compartment with one person in, it just so happened to be Harry.

"Can we sit here?" asked Max her mask firmly in place. It wouldn't do to be recognized.

"Sure" he moved his stuff and the group sat down.

"I'm Ookami, this is Sasuke Uchiha, Shikamaru Nara, Edward Elric, Naruto Uzumaki and Gaara of the desert," Max introduced pointing at each of them in turn.

"I'm Harry, why do you wear a mask?"

"It's part of my job." They chatted aimlessly for a while. The train had started moving and Max had quieted down a bit trying to ignore her stomach that was protesting. Maybe those doughnuts hadn't been such a good idea.

The door opened and Laura's face peered in.

"Ookami, Ino wants to talk to you."

"Why?" asked Max, she didn't want to move in case it made her anymore sick.

"No idea but she's yelling at everyone so can you please come quick."

"Fine, make sure no one takes my seat, except Max if she ever surfaces," she said to the others before leaving with Laura they got the compartment most of the girls were inhabiting.

"Ok what's the crisis?"

"Some red head guy came here and started insulting us then he called Ino a prissy airhead. He kept boasting about how we should look up to him as he's going to be Harry Potter's best friend."

"Lovely, lets find this charming kiddo before Ino remembers she's a ninja and scrambles his brain," Max suggested and with that she left and headed up the train, peering in all of the compartments, she couldn't find him and made her way back to the carriage only to find just the person she was looking for… in her seat.

"What are you doing in my seat?" asked Max, her friends noticed her annoyance.

"I don't see your name on it."

"That may be true but my trunks above it causing it to mean I claimed this seat first so get your podgy arse out of it." Max smirked behind her mask as Ron flushed red.

"No, you're probably a death eater with that mask."

"Death eater masks are plain white with a slight skull appearance, whereas mine is in the style of a wolf, in case you're too blind to notice." 

"Why do you have a mask then?"

"If it were your business you would know." She saw Ron go even redder if the was even possible as he tried to think up a reply.

"This is a boys compartment we don't want you here."

"Do these people agree? I know for a fact most won't because I've known most of them since they were small." Behind Max, Draco and his two friends, came to the door.

"Is Harry in there?" Draco asked politely, Max had a feeling his father had informed him of the shinobi presence.

"Yes but pick on the interloper it's funnier," said Max glaring at Ron.

"It's amazing he managed to find somewhere to sit, you'd have thought he would have been kicked out with all the insulting he's done up and down the train," said Draco, who smirked as Ron's ears went red.

"You're just the son of a death eater."

"Hey don't insult my friend," interrupted Harry. Ron just looked in shock.

"Your going dark he's placed you under a spell!" the red head screeched. It was obvious that hadn't hit puberty, painfully obvious.

"So whose turn is it?" asked Max, oblivious to Ron's ranting.

"I believe it was Naruto's" yawned Shikamaru.

"No I did it last time I think its Shikamaru's turn,"

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry.

"Whose turn it is to kick out an annoying kid," explained Naruto.

"Hey, tell you what since Shika is to lazy ill drag him out. Blondie you can have my seat I need to be somewhere now," suggested Max looking at Draco. The others nodded and Max grabbed Ron's arm and dragged him to the other end of the train and locked him in an newly empty compartment.

She then switched with her other self and became Max again, time to make friends, she went hunting along compartments and found the one her ANBU partner was in, also in the compartment were two red haired twins and a boy with dreadlocks.

"Can I sit here" she asked then she noticed the spider, "whoa that things huge where did you get it its adorable," she missed the three boys exchanging a look.

"Sure you can sit here, I'm Fred and this is George and this is Lee, we don't know who the masked person is because he wouldn't tal,k" introduced Fred.

"Don't worry about it he's just a bit antisocial I don't know his real name but his code name is Ryuu, his partners around somewhere and her code name is Ookami. Her mask is a wolf so it won't be too hard to recognize her. Oh and I'm Max. Well Maxine but anyone who calls me that gets a face full of pain," said Max as she sat in one of the corners. it was weird acting her physical age but she had to do it at some point. She didn't miss the hidden smirk under her teammates mask.

"So you guys are probably in a different year to me, I'm only a first year."

"We have two successful years of pranking under out belts and are going for a third."

"You prank too, awesome. I love pranks but the one I remember most is when my teacher was being mean, so I put honey in her shampoo." Things went swimmingly from then, even as Itachi projected a smug 'I knew it was you' expression from behind his mask.

\----

When the snack trolley came around Max looked at some of it and decided to try a blood pop despite everyone suggesting against it. Five seconds later she requested more because of the metallic taste which was nice and the fact she no longer felt travel sick.

The chocolate frog had been funny as one had tried to escape but ended up impaled on a kunai. It had been so fast none of the three pranksters noticed who it was and Max just blamed Itachi.

She switched with her clone several times and wandered around the compartments to make herself known. She had returned to Harry's compartment briefly as Max and had laughed at the expression on their faces as she removed the blood pop from her mouth as she asked how they were doing, she would have joined them but the compartment was still full and she didn't want to move them. 

Ages later the train came to a stop. Max had left while the trio had changed but since she wasn't required to wear it she just wandered the corridor for a bit.

Along with the others she followed Hagrid to the boats and got one with Laura, Harry and Draco. Her clone had hitched a ride on one of the thestral drawn carriages.

Finally they entered the great hall after meeting the ghosts.

"As some of you may have noticed the first years are in a greater number this year and there are two new second years and a third year. This is because this year we are hosting some students from a school in Japan which had a tragic accident in which they were forced to separate the students and some were sent here." That was the cover excuse. "Treat them as you would any other student but use caution, in their school they not only learn magical dueling but physical as well so it would be unwise to antagonize them." All the ninjas were wondering if he always understated things. McGonagall came in with a three legged stool and a ragged hat and started calling out names.

The shinobi were left until last, as part of a separate list. Max could guess where most of them would end up and tried not to cheer everytime she was correct. She herself ended up in Slytherin, Laura at Revenclaw. The rest were spread out in the houses, at least a few of them in each.

The sorting had finally finished and Dumbledore stood, not quite as pleased at the amount of ninjas in Slytherin.

"The Japanese school has also sent over two guards to keep an eye on their students but have agreed to look out for the general student body. Ryuu and Ookami will be around, despite the fact there are only two of them they will be more than capable."

During this speech Max had switched with her clone to become ANBU once more with Itachi and they both shushined to the platform at the front, seemingly appearing out of no where both had weapons on show and looked deadly, something they would deny practicing. Dumbledore finished giving out notices and the food appeared. They had been introduced to this kind of food in the last week but some of the things were still unknown. Naruto and Kiba had just filled their plates with a pile of everything that wasn't green or vegetable looking. Max would tell Naruto off later.

The feast was soon over and everyone headed to their common rooms. In the Slytherin common room they were shown to their rooms, unlike Gryffindor they weren't separated into dorms by sex and year, each had one or two room mates but each year group had a communal girl's and boy's bathrooms to share and all the rooms for each year were along seperate corridors.

Since Temari was new and so there weren't any spare spaces in the second year areas she ended up sharing with Max. Opposite their room were Sasuke, Shino and Gaara. Draco with his two friends was next to them. To stop the guys going into the girl's rooms they had enchantments on the doors so only a girl could open them. It allowed more interaction and the boys had a nasty reaction if they tried to enter a girls room.


	4. This is Halloween (Everybody make a scene)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm keeping this all published true to FFNet at least for the moment or I'll never finish cross posting this (I get distracted too easily)
> 
> I am still sort of torn between going throught and making it more coherent and less like my teenage self's word womit. I'll finish cross posting then decided, maybe throw in the next chapter thats been half written for forever

Before Max got to the great hall she was ambushed by the twins. She was grateful for the baseball cap. She had gotten it because of the magic floating around in the air fuzzed around with her Henge and so she needed more concentration than before and getting ambushed like that would have caused her Henge to falter. It was a black hat with the words ‘Never say die’ in silver and her normal black jeans and boots with a tee shirt with the words ‘You're only young once... you can be immature forever.’ Laura had seen that and burst out laughing just for the fact they had been young twice but still immature, so Max ended up getting it when they had been shopping.  
“So you’re a Slytherin…” There was a pregnant pause before she was hugged by them.

“Now it’s going to be so much easier to prank because they won’t suspect you, you aren’t a brash Gryffindor”

“Talking of pranks I need to do something,” said Laura who had been walking past. They got to the great hall and sat down, Laura took out a rubber band and hooked it around her left thumb and forefinger. Then she got out a large oily shard of metal and put it between her fingers on the rubber band, she took aim and released the band. 

The projectile flew through the air into Quirrell’s goblet which promptly exploded. Max had recognised the projectile and taken cover and most of the ninjas had copied and some other people so they weren’t covered in the resulting explosion. Laura pumped her arm in triumph. Operation ‘sodium at breakfast’ was a success. Unfortunately the teachers noticed and she got detention.

First lesson was potions so Max ran, she didn’t want to miss a second. Inside Snape proceeded to pick on Harry which Max scowled at, it reminded her of why she and Naruto would skip the academy; because some of the teachers were gits. Max had ended up partnered with Draco and Harry was with Naruto.

“Sir, aren’t we supposed to be learning, not taunting people,” suggested Max, the entire class gasped and turned to her.

“Fine, since you seem to think your better than me. What happens if you add moonstone to firemint”

“Like an acid base reaction they would neutralise each other creating a neutralised solution and a compound in muggle chemistry it would be a salt”

“What are the properties of dihydrogen monoxide?”

“It kills people if inhaled, symptoms of ingestion include heavy sweating and excess urination, when in a gaseous form can cause burns, and is a major substance in acid rain”

“That sounds really dangerous I bet its one of her poisons,” whispered Ron loudly on the other side of the room to which Max stage whispered back.

“It’s water, numskull”

“Why has no one written this down?” snapped Snape.

“You didn’t tell them to,” said Max, she got a glare for her troubles. She guessed if she hadn’t been in Slytherin she would be drowned in detention and her house would have no points.

Naruto was trying to stifle his giggles; he knew Max had a problem with school in any shape or form. Behind Max, Gaara and Sasuke had ended up partners and they were wondering how long until Max broke their teacher. Also, unseen to everyone Itachi was in a corner wondering the same thing; the current record was three minutes when Yuri had become their genin teacher. Max remembered that too and sobered up a bit out of her insolent faze. It didn’t last though.

“Stay after class!” The whole class gasped, rumour was he had never told a Slytherin to stay behind.

“Ok.” The unseen figure was shaking his head, he didn’t know of a force in the world that scared Max. This teacher was an amateur compared to some people who had tried. The class was set to making a simple potion to get rid of boils. Snape would wander around scaring random students into making mistakes.

“You do know you aren’t allowed too wear hats in class,” he sneered at Max. Max just returned the glare and without a word got up and left, leaving Snape dumbfounded as well as most of the class. She returned five minutes later holding a piece of paper 

“Ok here is written permission saying I can wear it signed by the headmaster,” said Max showing it to him

“What are you doing?” he asked as Max added a few miscellaneous items.

“Adding a few catalysts to speed up the creation process”

“Is it on the board?”

“No, do you have nose cancer?”

“What!?!” That was the closest anyone had seen him to exploding.

“Do you have nose cancer?”

“What’s nose cancer?”

“It’s a disease muggle discovered its something that hinders some of the proteins in the cells so effectively they don’t know not to keep reproducing so they take up more space and form lumps, but since you nose is basically a lump it just made it bigger. I thought since your nose is quite big then maybe you have nose cancer.” Max was oblivious to the fact Snape was glaring at her and the entire class was watching.

The end of the lesson came and Max was ready to high tail it out of the class room until she found the door closed and almost collided with it. Then she slipped on a patch of slime and did hit the door.

“I thought I asked you to stay behind”

“And I have… so can I go now?”

“This is the kind of cheek that got you into this mess”

“What mess, I see no mess” said Max looking around innocently.

“Don’t be so insolent”

“Last time someone said that to me they ended up in a bit of pain,” said Max remembering the time she had been captured. Then any time she had been captured. Good times, she smiled in rememberance.

“Are you threatening me?”

“No I’m informing you of something random”

“Just get out of my sight and don’t be so bad-mannered, next time it will be detention.” 

Max practically flew out of the room. She ran to transfiguration and got their just in time but once again got asked to stay behind. She couldn’t think why she had gotten her work done and while the needle had ended up embedded in the desk across the room no one had been injured. It was like a sebon and years of training didn’t help.

“Jeez I’ve only been here a day and I’m already in trouble with two different teachers,” she groaned.

“I don’t like your attitude in my class”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“My class is for working in not mucking around”

“I got my work done didn’t I, so what’s the problem?”

“You need to respect things not charge on head first and make mistakes”

“And that would be what she said,” Max couldn’t resist adding the innuendo, McGonagall’s lips were so pursed they were practically nonexistent. Max took her chance and left.

Her next lesson was charms she pulled a blood pop out of her pocket and put it in her mouth as she realised she would be late at this rate, grinning she grabbed a random suit of amours shield and with a running jump she leapt onto the banister and using the shield as a board she slid down the banisters. She passed some stragglers on her way down and stopped at the charms corridor propping the shield against a wall and walking into the classroom sucking her blood pop.

Everyone turned to watch her; she cursed who ever decided to put Slytherin with Gryffindor as Ron piped up about the lollypop, causing Flitwick to notice.

“Miss Hakie we don’t eat during lessons.” Max shrugged and removed it showing the class what she had been eating by proxy.

“She’s an evil vampire!” Max rolled her eyes, Ron was so predictable.

“Oh look at the sunlight coming through the window and landing on me, oh look I’m not dying in a ball of flames or sparkling, I’m not dead either, or at least I wasn’t last time I checked.” She poked herself a few times and frowned.

“Well whadaya know I am dead, but I’m still moving so I probably am a vampire. Go figure.” With that she walked to an empty seat and at down, Ron was just gaping like a fish. The class was pretty normal, well except Max and Ron spent the whole lesson trading insults, while Flitwick had gone to sort out Peeves who was terrorizing the halls and wouldn’t stop, people taking bets on who would snap first. Someone had even started commentating.

“I know what your doing, creature,” sneered Ron.

“Yes, I’m sitting here insulting you”

“You’ve put them under a mind altering spell”

“Have you noticed I’m only 11? I wouldn’t be able to do that”

“Vampires look young,” said Ron still glaring.

“They also can't walk around in sunlight yet here I am”

“You don’t fool me I’m to smart for you mind games”

“I don’t expect to fool you, I expect to make a fool out of you and so far I’m succeeding”

“Yea well you’re short”

“You have red hair, isn’t being able to see nice”

“You look like a 6 year old”

“And your IQ is 6”

“Is not”

“Your right it’s minus 6”

“Is not”

“Minus 7?”

“No, it’s really high”

“Who told you that? They were obviously drunk or high”

“It was my mother”

“Well she had to keep your hopes up some how”

“Are you calling her a liar?”

“No I’m just saying she bent the truth so that you wouldn’t be depressed”

“I am intelligent!”

“Prove it.” The crowd ‘oohh’ed, this was getting tense, a mistake now would not be good.

“Ask me a question,” demanded Ron.

“What is the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?” Most of the muggleborns of half bloods were sniggering, why 11 year olds had been watching Monty Python Max would never know.

“How am I supposed to know that?” exclaimed Ron.

“By watching muggle films”

“But I’m not a muggle”

“Are you implying that I am?”

“Yes”

“So I, a supposed muggle, am smarter than you?”

“No, you’re stupid; all muggles are stupid so you must be one”

“How can you get up in the morning, quite frankly it amazes me you haven’t died yet from either forgetting to breathe or just lack of brain power?” There was a hushed silence as Ron struggled for a comeback but he failed and let out an enraged growl, or tried to but his voice hadn’t broken so was a bit high pitch. 

Flitwick chose that moment to walk back into the classroom. Everyone scrambled for their seats and sat as if they had been there all the time.

\----

Soon it was lunch time and once again Max slide down the banisters on a shield but this time she ran out of banister and crashed into a wall bypassing several students amazingly.

“That didn’t hurt,” Max proclaimed.

As she peeled herself of the wall students watched as Laura walked up to her and picked up the shield and bashed Max round the head with it causing her to stagger a bit as if she had been drinking.

“That did though,” she amended.

“Max how could you do something dangerous like that without me?”

“Uh, I picked up a shield and spontaneously decided to surf down a banister,” she said shrugging.

“Next time tell me and we’ll race”

“Ok, you’re on”

They walked into the great hall and dragged Harry and Draco from their respective tables to the Ravenclaw table. Most of the upper years were shocked and Dumbledore was seething.

“So how were your days?” asked Max, she was well aware they were being looked at.

“Not as interesting as I bet yours was,” said Laura smirking.

“Well, apparently I’m a vampire, I have two teachers who I’m in trouble with and I managed to insult some guy a lot. Funny thing is I can't remember his name.” The group shared a laugh they chatted for a while. Some of the other ninjas joined them while they were eating until Dumbledore came up to them.

“I’m afraid you’ll all have to go back to your house tables”

“Why?” Aas the collective question.

“At meals it’s required to sit at your house tables as per the rules”

“Whose rules?” asked Laura.

“The schools”

“Well then we have a problem, I’m not sitting apart from my friends just because of some dumb nonexistent rule. Don’t act like were stupid I read Hogwarts a history,” said Laura, the others nodded in agreement.

“It’s for the good of house unity, there wouldn’t be much point in having houses if you didn’t spend time together,” explained Dumbledore.

“That was just wrong and sick,” whispered Max to Draco who sniggered. Max was wondering about some of these kids. They were beginning to understand some of her jokes. It hadn’t been that long.

“I spend after curfew with them, isn’t that enough. No wonder everyone’s so biased against other houses, they can't spend much time with them the only place they can meet up is the library and them they have to be quite, outside its cold and you end up messy,” said Max out loud, announcing it to the whole school.

“That’s quite enough, you will return to your tables now”

“And if we don’t…” pressed Max, she didn’t want to miss out on annoying someone.

“I will have to assign you detentions,” said Dumbledore.

“Hey Laura we can start on trying to break that record of most detentions” exclaimed Max. They shared a high-five much to Dumbledore’s annoyance.

“And the stupidest reason for one,” was Draco’s addition. He got a high-five from both girls.

“Wasn’t the last one for spiting down the side of the stairs down the middle to see who they hit,” added Harry. Four way high-fives were interesting.

“I thought it was for attempting to abseil out a window,” said Laura.

“I so have to do that. It sounds like fun,” said Max already planning.

“RETURN TO YOUR TABLES NOW!” screamed the headmaster.

“You all owe me five galleons” said Harry calmly to the others; each of the other three people handed over the money.

“Why couldn’t he have lasted two more minutes? Two that’s all I could ask for” moaned Draco.

“I was so certain he would start foaming at the mouth,” mourned Laura at her loss, they got up and headed towards their own tables. For now they would obey that particular ‘rule’, until tomorrow, tomorrow was a new day.

“Hey Harry, how was herbology?” yelled Max over the noise of the hall.

“It was ok, could have been better but that red hair kid tripped over his own feet and spilt some instant flowering seeds. How was transfiguration?”

“Not to bad, I got in trouble again”

“That’s not surprising,” yelled Laura from the Ravenclaw table.

“Hey, I resent that, I can stay out of trouble sometimes”

“Name once”

“Uh… ok you’ve got me there but still I could if I wanted to”

“I don’t believe you”

“She isn’t the only one,” called out Naruto from next to Harry.

“I can't remember one time she wasn’t annoying someone,” said Laura.

“Ok you’ve made your point but asking me to stop is like asking Sakura to stop being a fan girl, it’s impossible,” protested Max. They heard and indignant squawk from the Hufflepuff table.

“Be quiet!” a voice boomed from the teachers table, they looked and saw Dumbledore seemed to be turning purple.

“But we want to talk but since we can't sit near each other we have to yell,” explained Laura.

“You can wait until after the meal”

“No we can't”

“Why not”

“I need to talk to them, it helps me retain my sanity”

“Wait until later, surely you can last through a meal”

“Never mind I’m finished and the others are too,” said Laura, she had a random way of finding out, but she was very observant. The group met outside and headed to the library to finish some homework. Or at least pretend to. Books were so easy to booby trap.

That night Max couldn’t sleep, it seemed the blood pops were full of caffeine too. She found Gaara sitting on one of the various towers. They stared as the stars for a bit, Max would point out some of them that she could remember. They had been silent for a while though.

“Max?”

“Yes”

“What do you think the meaning of life is?”

“Gaara, I don’t know and I really don’t want to know because it’s probably some random thing like were just a pimple on some ones arse, so I would be better of not knowing”

“Maybe we are here to make the most of life”

“Uh huh,” Max had given up trying to get him to listen to reason and was just nodding when he said something.

“So do you have a crush on someone?” Fortunately for Max she had been paying some attention.

“Huh?”

“Do you?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“It’s either me or Temari?”

“Ah, well the answer is no”

"Fine but you have to reason with her." Max only glared in response, Max eventually went back to her room and fell asleep.

Months passed and Halloween came. Max was stuck in charms sucking a blood pop. Her teachers had given up telling her not to. Across the room she heard Ron having a go at someone. Pretty much every day for the last two months Max had argued with him. She saw the girl he was moaning at perform the charm and his face turned sour. 

Max performed the charm but ‘accidently’ missed so Ron ended up floating above his seat. Ron had started to panic and scream blaming her, that’s when a kunai became embedded in his desk and a second latter one in hers. He had gone pretty pale. Max’s ANBU partner Ryuu appeared in the centre of the room scaring the others into silence.

“What is the problem?” her partner growled.

“That stupid bint levitated me,” complained Ron.

“I missed the feather because you’re moaning was distracting me. Oh and I’m not a bint, I am in no way similar to your mum,” countered Max.

“You have terrible aim then!” Ron was turning as red as his hair.

“And you have a bad attitude”

“STOP both of you,” growled Ryuu, he went and pulled the kunai out of the wall and desk and returned to the centre of the room.

“If you two can't behave then you’ll settle it in the way of my home country”

“How’s that?” asked Ron.

“A fight or duel”

“It’s not allowed in the rules,” Ron said automatically.

“Dumbledore agreed that if you insulted one of my students then I can choose the consequence”

“In Hogwarts a history it says you could challenge someone to a ‘duel to uphold your honour’ and in the recent rules it hasn’t been rescinded,” piped in Hermione.

“So it’s settled four o’clock on the Quiddich pitch, no magic, in the style of my homeland its just fists and feet until one concedes. Professor Flitwick can observe and act as referee if he wishes to,” said Max, for some strange reason Dumbledore walked in.

“I’m sorry but I cannot allow this.” Max rolled her eyes.

“Are you denying us our cultural heritage and out rite of honour?” asked Max.

“It’s against school policy”

“If you had gotten here two second earlier you would have found Hermione quote that it is allowed” said Draco, Dumbledore looked panicked for a second but it disappeared moments later.

“Fine but only magic” Dumbledore was laughing, what damage could two first years do?

“Max issued the challenge and her rules, you can't change it,” said Hermione, she may not be their friend properly but they had helped her out a few times.

“Your timing sucks ass”

“I will act as referee then”

“Should I just let you read a transcript of before you walked in so you can see that you can't change a thing without insulting the honour of the challenger and I can tell you now the repercussions won’t be good,” said Ryuu. Dumbledore was silently seething here he had been out manoeuvred by a bunch of kids.

“Nothing life threatening then”

“Damn I knew I forgot something!” exclaimed Max. The lesson ended not long after the headmaster left. Later Max was cornered by Laura.

“Do you know what day it is”

“Uh, no”

“It’s Halloween, what happened on Halloween?” Max looked confused for a second then her eyes widened.

“Crap. I’ll ask Ryuu to guard the place just in case”

“He’s going to be watching over the match to ensure the rules are followed” Laura reminded

“Double crap, I’ll ask Gaara, hopefully he won’t mind missing the fight”

“He might get carried away and kill him then we would get into trouble and loads of questions will be asked about why he was there”

“Who do you suggest?”

“Make something obvious so it deters him. Then during dinner make it disappear then he’ll take the opportunity to let the troll in then and then it can go like in the book, except Ron isn’t there,” suggested Laura.

“This is why you’re better at making plans than me”


	5. Hit me with your best shot (you'll still probably miss)

Four o’clock approached and both fighters were warming up, well Ron was doing loads of showy stretching that would do nothing to help him. Max had an evil glint in her eye that struck fear into the hearts of the other shinobi, the blood pop in her mouth probably didn’t help the image. It was the look she had when she was ready to hand someone their ass on a silver platter. She had had it when she fought the snake Sannin and she had had it when she massacred the group of people, one of which had killed her teacher. 

Ron, of course, was oblivious to this.

Max had left two wolf summons guarding the door on the third corridor, both the size of a car and Itachi had left a clone. Laura had suggested giving his clone one of her summon guns but she didn’t want him to find a weakness with it, it would make their spars less interesting.

Most of the school had turned up just to watch the two first years beat each other up. It beats playing exploding snap or doing homework anyway. The clock chimed four times and the two duellers approached the platform with Flitwick standing between them and with a quick sonorous he started to announce.

“Welcome to the honour duel between the challenger Miss Maxine-” Max twitched violently, “-Hakie of Slytherin and the challenged Mr Ronald Weasley of Gryffindor, as per the challengers terms it will be a non magic duel and only hands and feet may be used first to concede defeat fails the honour duel. Due to the fact that it can't be lethal the winner gets 50 points to their house and the loser loses 50 points from their house.” Both competitors nodded in agreement.

“Would both contestants hand over their wands and stand back to back then on the word ready take 3 steps forward and on the word go you may begin.” Again the two first years nodded as they did as they were told.

“Ready?” they took 3 steps forward away from each other.

“Go.” Ron stood very little chance as Max practically blurred out of sight and the next thing he saw the sky as he fly backwards by way of a powerful uppercut. He slowly stood, the world seemed to swirl, he saw the swirl that was Max and ran forward with his fist in front of him aiming for her face, she merely ducked and as he drew back his fist Max stood up taking Ron’s foot with her flipping him onto his back.

“This is the best you’ve got?” said Max, she had expected something better, nothing to her standards but still, she wasn’t even trying hard but then again she had trained since she was three. Ron scrambled to his feet and lunged at her again, she side stepped and tripped him as he passed. In the stands once again the others were taking bets on who would win, the twins were at the heart of it enjoying themselves and cradling their earnings so far. 

“I did expect you to hit me once but it appears you’re a bad at this as you are at magic,” taunted Max. She didn’t notice him lunging for her foot so ended up falling backwards but she only flipped up and disappeared.

“Foul, she’s using magic to become invisible,” Ron cried out only to fall forward as a foot connected with his back. He got up and looked at Flitwick in the hope he would be right.

“I gave my wand to Flitwick I can't do magic, just extreme speed,” said Max as she blurred out of sight and kicked him in the chest and watched as he flew back.

“That’s impossible,” he groaned as he got up.

“They said flying to the moon was impossible to but they still did that, so are you going to give up or let me kick you around.”

“I’m just letting you; it wouldn’t be fair to show you up,” he protested.

“Prove it!” Max was getting a gleam in her eye, Ron ran at her again and attempted to kick her only to get his foot grabbed and she twisted it around.

“Do you give?” she asked twisting it and seeing him wince in pain.

“No!” he said defiantly, she shrugged and twisted his foot some more.

“I can break this leg very easily so unless you give up you will leave me with no choice.” They both were glaring at each other. Max gave a sudden twist and there was a sickening crack, Ron gave a cry of pain as he crumpled to the floor his leg was at a strange, unnatural angle.

“Due to the fact Mr Weasley cannot continue Miss Hakie is the winner,” announced Flitwick as Madam Pomfrey ran over too them looking disapprovingly at Max; somehow they both were dragged back to the hospital wing.

\----

“Students fighting indeed, you did quite a number on Mr Weasley” The nurse tutted, Max dreaded to think what she would say if she saw half the scars she had. It was as if she read her mind the nurse came over and started checking over her.

“How did you get these scars?”

“I fail to see how it is relevant, I’m not hurt in any way these scars are old and have been cared for,” growled Max.

“You are a student and it is my responsibility to make sure the students are in good health!”

“I’m fine really, I’ve had worse and it didn’t bother me!” insisted Max trying to back away slowly.

“I can at least get rid of the unsightly things,” she said raising her wand.

“No!” cried Max defensively her eyes narrowing, she liked her scars.

“Why would you want them?” asked Ron curiously from the bed nearby. They had been talking for a while before the nurse had told them to be quiet and Max even though she would never admit it though he wasn’t a bad as she first thought but she would still insult him just for humours sake.

“They’re to remind me not to make the same mistakes twice.” With that she got up, ignoring the protests of Madam Pomfrey who tried to stop her even tried to stun her but Max simply dodged then legged it back to the library to meet Laura to discuss what they should do now. Ed was also there but they agreed he could help. He did get a bit curious about how they knew all the obstacles but his question was waved off.

“I think we need to move the stone to a safe place,” said Laura as they hid in the middle of the library Max had checked the place out and there was no way of being over heard.

“But what about the last part the mirror might be a bit tricky,” wondered Max as she stroked her imaginary beard.

“I thought it didn’t get put in until after Christmas,” said Laura.

“I bet it was but Dumbledore moved it so Harry would find it, I mean who gives a first year a way to explore the castle when ever he wants?” explained Max.

“When should we do this?”

“After the teacher announces about the troll we shadow him and after he fails we make our move,” announced Max with determination.

“Ok, we should go to dinner we wouldn’t want to miss the show.” With that said the three of them went down to the great hall and sat at their respective tables in an attempt not to arouse more trouble.

Half way through the feast the so called defence teacher ran in screaming like a girl.

“TROLL! TROLL, in the dungeon just thought you ought to know!” he exclaimed before fainting. The hall exploded into chaos and in that chaos Max, Laura and Ed snuck over to the supposed unconscious professor and waited under a table while the others were escorted back to the common room. They wondered if anyone realised the Slytherin common rooms were in the dungeons. 

Once the hall was empty the pathetic excuse for a teacher got up and dusted himself down and headed for the third floor corridor, oblivious to the trio following him. 

He entered the room and five minutes later they saw Snape follow and then both ended up running out and they saw one of the muzzles of the three headed dog attempt to squeeze through to sniff them. It was really hard to keep hidden when they were trying so hard not to laugh. 

Once they were out of sight the trio entered the room Max withdrawing a set of panpipes from one of her pockets and began to play and they watched as all three heads fell asleep.

“When did you learn to play?” asked Laura.

“During academy for the second time, I had to do something to pass the time, drove the teacher nuts,” said Max between breaths.

Ed opened the trap door. He and Laura jumped down and were followed by Max all three of them fell on something squishy and each reacted in their own way. 

Ed began to slash at it after quickly transmuting his arm. Laura kept really calm and Max snapped her fingers and sent a ball of fire in to the air and they watched at the plant shrunk down.

“That’s like what Mustang does,” commented Ed as they moved on to the next room. Max blushed a bit; it was Mustang she had gotten the idea from. The next room was the one with flying keys but since none of them really felt like chasing it Ed transmuted the doorway into jus an arch with elegant wooden carvings around it from the wooden door just to get it our of the way. 

In front of them the giant chess set loomed.

“I don’t suppose anyone’s any good at chess, I haven’t played in a few years and would probably fail miserably,” asked Max the other two shook their heads.

“I didn’t think so, I wish Shikamaru was here. So, any ideas?” once again the other two shook their heads then Laura visible brightened up.

“How fast can you run?” she asked causing a smile to grow on Max’s face she grabbed both of them one over each shoulder using chakra to enhance the muscles she ran over the room jumping over the obstacles, she slammed into the door on the other side, it was supposed to open only when they had defeated the chess pieces. 

Ed quickly did some transmutation of the door again and they rushed through as he transmuted it back. They saw the troll menacing them with its club. Since part of their plan had been to leave it pretty much untouched killing it was out of the question. 

Max decided Genjutsu would be best and started the seals for one that would hopefully make it at least occupied for a while. They were in luck as the troll decided that cowering in the corner would be better for its heath as its worse nightmares swam in its vision. Once again they moved on as soon as they had all entered the room two fires sprung up in both doorways. Ed looked at the piece of paper and worked it out. They took a tiny sip of the content of the bottle and entered the next room to see the mirror.

“Hey Laura, do you think it would be fooled by genjutsu?”

“I don’t know maybe if we swapped it for something, we need to do that anyway maybe switch it for a red stone no one will know the difference.” 

“Where do we get a red stone?” They both then turned to Ed.

“Ed?” He rolled his eyes and transmuted a red stone using red pigment and a random rock then something strange happened, Ed who was holding the fake stone looked into the mirror. There was a flash of red light as the stone was replaced by a small bottle of a red liquid but from its density reminded Max and Laura of mercury.

“Well now that that’s done we should get out of here,” said Laura heading for the door. Max rolled her eyes and grabbed both of them and shushined out to the devils snare room which was her limit seeing as it shushin was basically speed to the extreme plus some illusions or at least that was what she thought it was the only thing that made sense. 

They saw the devil snare re-growing slowly and looked up at the small square that was the trap door. None of them had any clue to how to get up, until Laura ran into the next room at least. She re-emerged holding three broomsticks and each of them grabbed one and mounted it. They may not have had their flying lessons yet but how hard could it be. 

They only just got out uninjured and when they got of the broomsticks flew back down to the room. The three of them sighed in relief they were done. Their mission was complete. The felt warm breath on the back of their necks then remembered the three headed dog and ran out the door. 

“That was so much fun, we should do it again!” said Max as they caught their breath as they walked to the library they discussed how easy it was to seal a stone in the supposed safest place. Besides if anyone noticed they would blame some random kid. 

They decided that Max would seal the stone into a scroll and Ed would transmute a casing in the shape of a small gothic dragon with no way of opening it other than transmuting it then, leave it with Laura since she wouldn’t be able to unseal it and be tempted to use it. They made sure only the person who did the protection saw it being done so if some one read their mind they would only get part of it.

Max quickly made a clone and henged it into her ANBU alter ego and made it escort them to their common rooms. It was only when Max closed her door did she realise there were more people in her room then there should be.

“Hey Sasuke, Gaara, Shino, Temari,” she said nodding to each as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Where were you?” asked Temari from her bed.

“Saving the world,” answered Max in the same tone and a straight face.

“You took the stone!” accused Sasuke.

“No! I put it somewhere safe were no one knows where it is, anyway I can't wait for tomorrow, first flying lesson,” she said changing the subject.

“You actually trust a broomstick to fly they don’t look like they could sweep the floor let alone fly!”

“Imagine this, if you learn to fly just think about how it would make missions more interesting. Flying over an enemy and then just dropping out of the air onto them!” The others rolled their eyes, why Max was so excited was beyond them. They headed to bed while Max escaped out the room muttering about windows and headed to the roof to discuss some things with her partner. Every month they would discuss things like lessons to see what they learn and how it would help benefit the students in case of an attack.

“Where did you go after the feast?”

“Relocate the stone into a safe place seeing as the defence professor tried to get it.”

“How are the lessons?”

“Alchemy’s fun Mustang may be a bit arrogant but he gets the job done. Defence is worse than the academy, the teacher is faking the stuttering and there is now a burn mark above my seat,” Max reported.

“The flare gun again?”

“Yup, potions is easy but Snape just gives us the instructions and says get on with it. He doesn’t explain things, the only reason I’m passing is because I’ve done something similar before. Transfiguration is pretty cool we get a far balance of theory and practical but McGonagall is a bit harsh, unlike Snape she prides herself in being nonbiased but it doesn’t stop her from not liking Slytherin. Herbology is interesting because many of the plants are useful. Charms is hilarious, Flitwick is a great teacher and astronomy is ok at best. So far I’ve managed to get out of every detention that I’ve been set.”

“I hear you have flying lessons tomorrow.”

“Yup, it’s the only for of physical education they get apart from walking around. Which brings me to a new point, I need someone to spar with or I’ll get rusty and you are the only one who can keep up. Ok sometimes I spar with Gaara but it gets kind of repetitive.”

“Fine, sitting around gets boring.” Max beamed and they headed for the forest to practice.

The morning came as Max and Itachi returned to the castle both covered in new bruises, cuts and burn marks. It was still a couple of hours until most people got up so they found Gaara and ended up arguing over the best way to kill someone, it only triggered a song in Max’s mind ‘I can't decide’ by the Scissor Sisters. Unfortunately Max’s MP3 player didn’t work because of the magic so she couldn’t let them listen.


	6. Flying and swooping

All too soon people were stirring so Max and Gaara returned to their rooms to get ready for the new day. Itachi just moved around the castle making sure nothing out of the ordinary was happening. 

As was usual by now Max walked into the great hall sucking on a blood pop and people looked at her noticing some of the new cuts. Max never liked the attention she got in the morning when she had been doing something like training during the night. Her tee shirt today said ‘flying is easy just throw yourself at the ground and miss’.

“Don’t you people have late homework to be doing? ‘Cause I do and I can't do it while people are staring at me!” She called out, shocking people out of their stare. Each and every morning that this had happened she said something different. As she sat in her usual spot taking out her homework for charms she was approached by Draco who seemed to be bouncing in his step.

“Let me guess you’re excited about flying lessons,” she drawled as she wrote out why you should never levitate humans with wingardium leviosa. His incessant bouncing answered for him.

“If you don’t stop bouncing I will transfigure you into a ferret, I may not know how but that’s half the fun,” she threatened and Draco’s bouncing stopped or at least for the next five minutes it lessened, then returned.

They headed out to the grassy area where the broomsticks were lined up. Madam Hooch walked up to them and explained in a stern voice what they would be doing. Unfortunately the Gryffindor were in the same class. So naturally the sh.t was likely to hit the fan. As in the book they stood by a broom and said “Up,” most of them went straight up. 

As was predictable Neville was nervous and jumped the gun, causing him to shoot up. Madam Hooch did nothing to help as she was busy breaking up an argument between Ron and Draco. 

Max grabbed her broom and took to the air making leeway to Neville but ultimately she was going a bit slower than she probably could have, she hadn’t had enough practice to be able to do what was necessary to help him and try to control a speeding broom. 

She took initiative and stood on the broom near the back and with a few steps she jumped off at Neville using chakra to enhance the jump, unfortunately she miscalculated the jumps as Neville’s brooms movements were wild and unpredictable she caught on by a hand and swung up behind him. The broom was still moving wildly and Max almost lost her grip but successfully managed to crouch on the back.

“Neville calm down, just relax,” she said holding his shoulders to reassure him of her presence. She was crouched behind him and he visibly relaxed a bit her presence calmed him down despite her being a Slytherin. In her minds eye options were presenting themselves.

“Neville keep calm and just nudge the broom left a bit, just lean.” He did so and the broom move in a controlled but a bit jerky sweep left.

“That’s good now lean forward not to much just small movements smooth and precise, imagine your potting a plant, you need to keep you movements controlled.” The broom started to descend towards the ground by the group. Then Max remembered her broom.

“Do you think you could head over to that broom that’s drifting?” She asked.

“I’ll try.” he said shakily.

“I have faith in you, just remember your in control.” He nodded and moved slowly towards the broom gaining confidence. They got alongside it and Max gave Neville a choice.

“Do you want me to stay here or do you want to try on your own” She asked. 

“Can I try on my own?” Max smiled and moved slowly onto her own broom so not to upset the balance. Only then did Max notice her weapon scroll containing her scythe drop from her pocket and through her outstretched fingers as she made a swipe for it. She really doubted she could catch it and keep Neville calm and uninjured. 

She saw something below move fast heading towards it and recognised Harry’s black hair. The wind had taken hold of Max’s scroll and it was moving toward the walls of the castle but he sped at it and caught it moments before impact. He returned to the ground waiting for Max to return.

“Right now turn and head back to where the others are.” Neville turned, he was a bit shaky but got the hang of it then they started towards the ground where they noticed the others watching, Neville immediately started to panic.

“Neville, calm down just because they’re watching doesn’t mean you are going to muck it up. Imagine they aren’t there, imagine it was just like when I was there, nothing has changed just face up to you fears, you can make it. I believe you can and come on if a Slytherin belies in you then you can do it.” Max continued this all the way down. When they landed Neville looked in shock. Harry came over and handed back the scroll.

“I did it!” Neville exclaimed happily, Max smiled.

“When ever you think you can't do something remember this, it proves you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”

“I have never seen anything like this,” said a stern voice behind them; they both turned and saw Madam Hooch standing, her arms folded and her eyes seemed to pierce their skin, many people had tried to unnerve Max and so far this teacher seemed closest. From the castle they could see Professor McGonagall walking at a brisk pace towards the group.

“I would like Mr Potter to come with me,” she commanded, Hooch nodded and faced back to the pair. 

“Never in all my days have I seen such a display, I really don’t know what to do.” by now most of the class had meandered over.

“I would like to award Slytherin 20 points for Miss Hakie’s display of inter house unity and helping a fellow student,” announced Hooch shocking most of the class. The Slytherin’s weren’t sure whether to boo or cheer.

The lesson continued but Harry didn’t return, Max guessed he got told about seeker and they were probably discussing things. Next lesson was alchemy and Slytherin had it with Ravenclaw.

“Open you book to page 86 and read the blue box and summarise then start reading chapter 3,” instructed Professor Mustang. Max was sat between Laura and Ed. Mustang had decided to promote inter house unity they were seated Ravenclaw Slytherin, Ravenclaw etc. 

Ten minutes later the class had finished reading and Mustang began to quiz them. Max could just imagine him pulling a Kakashi and reading porn while turning up late with an extra lame excuse. 

\----

The lesson soon finished and they headed for lunch, Dumbledore was absent so Max and Laura went over to the Gryffindor table, Max sat between Harry and Neville while Laura sat opposite her, between Hermione and an empty space.

“How was whatever lesson you just had?” asked Max striking up conversation.

“It was pretty boring we had defence and he seemed a bit… off he barely stuttered and seemed a bit annoyed,” said Harry.

“We’ve just had alchemy, it’s defiantly one of the best lessons, and anyway what happened after McGonagall took you out of flying lessons.”

“You’ll never believe it, I’m the new Gryffindor seeker, youngest in a century.”

“So cool but I still think ice hockey is defiantly better, and thanks for catching my scroll, it’s very precious to me its something my first sensei gave me before she died.”

“Anytime, have you done the potions homework?” Harry asked, Max looked at him as if he had grown an extra head.

“You should know by now my homework is done half an hour before the lesson it’s due in,” proclaimed Max. Laura nodded, Max seemed to have all the jammy genes, she could do her homework in 10 minutes and still get a good grade. She thought back to their previous life when Max hadn’t bothered to do her German homework and the teacher hadn’t checked but said next lesson he would, by the next lesson Max still hadn’t and the teacher didn’t check. 

By the next lesson Max had finally done it and the teacher checked then. It was the same with books, if Max had forgotten her book they would most of the time not use them. Max had found this really funny. Her jammy genes didn’t get her out of every thing though.

\----

After lunch they headed to defence against the dark arts wondering what to do for the next hour. Once again Max and Laura were reminded of their past life, not all lessons had decent teachers. Some lessons they had played cards others they had slept and some they had even done their work just because they were extremely bored. 

Sadly Laura had Potions so headed to the dungeons. Max was sat at the back of the classroom wishing she could listen to her MP3 player when she was inspired. She would try to make her MP3 player compatible with magic.

It only took a couple of lessons until she figured out she could replace the electricity with chakra and as long as she kept pumping chakra into it, it would work. It was her new chakra control exercise. 

But now she was bored again, she looked through the books she had got and found one on the theory of apparating, it looked interesting enough and since Laura said they should wait until at least second year to try Animagus transformations she couldn’t do that. She had finished the book in a month and still had half a month worth of defence and history lessons to burn so she tried her hand at protecting her mind. She planed on learning the theory then putting it into practice after the holidays.

Last thing of the term was transfiguration they had been changing matchboxes into trinket boxes and most people couldn’t concentrate, as soon as they were let out the class practically vaulted over the desks to the door. Just as Max reached the door she heard her name being called.

“Max stay behind”

“Max what did you do this time?” came a voice from the corridor.

“I don’t remember”

“Max what’s this?” asked Professor McGonagall, holding up an essay.

“My essay”

“Why is it signed ‘The Almighty Super Ninja’”

“‘Cause it’s true.” Max received one of the harshest glares of the year.

“Next time just put you name on it, now get out before I take points.” Max ran out of the room wondering what to do to her next essay.

\----

Christmas was quiet apart from some of the pranks that got played, Laura and Max had missed the thrill of watching a prank come together

On Christmas day the teachers had come in dressed the part but not by choice, Dumbledore was Santa, most of the staff were reindeer, Snape was Rudolph and Flitwick and Hagrid were an elves. When Max and Laura walked in half an hour later Dumbledore beamed at them and gave them both 30 points each for creative use of charms and transfiguration. If glares could kill they would be 6 feet under just from the one from Snape. Most of the others found the funny side.

Back to lessons afterwards seemed to boring for words, her mind was better protected or so she hoped but she wouldn’t know about apparating for a while. She noticed Harry and Draco spending time in the library and confronted them.

“What are you two doing?”

“Research”

“On what?” The two boys exchanged a glance.

“Nicholas flamel”

“Why didn’t you just asked me? I know a bit about him”

“Like what?”

“First tell me why”

“We think that something of his is hidden in the third floor corridor and a teacher is trying to steal it.” Max started laughing, ‘good luck with that’ she thought.

“What’s so funny?”

“It took you this long to figure it out, anyway Flamel is the only known creator of the philosophers stone, it can change base metal into gold and it also known as the elixir of life and can keep some one alive so long as they have regular access to the stone”

“How do you know these things?”

“Reading and research, same as everyone else”

“What about three headed dogs?”

“Are you planning on stealing the stone?”

“No”

“Good, then you wont need the answer.” with that Max left to go and plan with Laura.

\----

Many months passed and the end of the year was fast approaching, Hermione, who was hanging around with Harry and Draco, after Max had yelled at Draco for being a jerk by calling her a mud blood, was in a panicked frenzy about the exams. She had almost flipped when she saw Max and Laura calmly playing muggle chess.

“You two should be revising for the exams, if you don’t pass them you won’t be able to return next year”

“Hermione, 1, calm down and breathe, B, this is revising just not for the exams, 3, we don’t revise for tests, its pointless and we have no need to and finally D, let people revise on their own terms don’t force it on them”

“Max you do realise that you gave you points in the order 1, B, 3, D,” said Laura as she moved her knight.

“My bad,” was Max’s noncommittal reply as she moved her queen to take it.

The day after the last exam Max and Laura watched as the defence teacher headed for the third floor. The saw Harry and Draco head there a little while later and they almost got stopped if it wasn’t for Max interfering and drawing Snape’s attention to Peeves. They watched them get passed the protections and only just noticed Ron and Hermione behind the two boys. 

They managed to catch up in the potions/riddle protection. Max and Laura were waiting and had taken some of the potion ready to follow who ever went through.

There was a small conflict but in the end they decided Harry should go on while the others do back to get help. As soon as both parties had gone Max and Laura jumped down from their hidey hole. They followed Harry through the fire.

As they expected the defence professor was standing in front of the mirror, Max and Laura quickly put on ANBU masks, glad they had changed into ninja gear first, Laura temporarily had a crane mask. They watched the conflict before the Defence teacher attacked Harry, Max threw a warning kunai before they both jumped down. 

“Cease you attempts or your life will be forfeit,” warned Max as she swished her scythe around. She saw a spell sent at her and dodged it, the killing green missing her and shattering one of the columns. Max sent out a few kunai in return while Laura helped harry. 

Max got distracted by the mirror and what it showed as she passed it; it gave her opponent enough time to blast her into a wall. As she tried to regain enough motion to defend the other two she saw him approach Harry and Laura, he shoved Laura out of the way and grabbed Harry only to withdraw hissing in pain.

“Harry grab him, he can't stand your touch, aim for the face” yelled Laura from the floor as she propped herself up. Harry did as he was told and the defence professor collapsed in extreme pain, Harry still managed to keep conscious for the moment. No one had notice the crack on Max’s mask or as it split and fell to the floor. Every one turn to the sound of shattering porcelain and saw Max without her mask her eyes wide before it was replaced with the image of an average girls face, via henge.

“Shit!” was the word that escaped Max’s lips closely echoed by Laura, Harry looked blearily at Max trying to make out her face to see what the mysterious guard looked like but sleep was calling him and before he could get a good look he succumbed to the darkness.


	7. Some things end, others begin

Harry opened his eyes, he felt like he had been hit by a bus several times. He sat up and noticed her was in hospital wing on the bed next to him was who he assumed was one of the guards, the one with the wolf mask on the bed side table. The guard was lying on her side facing away from him, but turned over in her sleep to face him, but something seemed different, her then noticed she didn’t have her mask and it looked like Max.

“Max?” The girl sat bolt upright showing it was Max.

“I am so going to get moaned at now”

“Why did you have one of the guard’s masks?” asked Harry.

“She had an emergency so I borrowed her mask so I wouldn’t be recognised when I went to help you” Max lied quickly.

“Oh... How did you get the scar on your back?”

“An accident with something that exploded.” Before he could ask another question the doors opened and Dumbledore walked in followed by Max’s partner and a clone of Max in her ANBU gear with a mask. Max assumed Itachi was covering for her.

“What happened to the stone?” asked Harry.

“Mr Flamel and I had a chat and decide it would be for the best if it was destroyed,” explained Dumbledore.

“I feel kind of guilty it’s partly my fault, do you think I could see him” asked Max. She wasn’t going to call bullsh.t yet.

“I’m sure that it can be arranged,” smiled Dumbledore, truthfully Max just wanted to explain things like the fact the stone was safe. Harry went to the feast later with Max’s clone while she went to debrief with Itachi.

\----

The end of term came and on the train Max sat on the roof sucking on her blood pop. After the feast Dumbledore had taken Max, Laura and Ed who also had expressed an interest to meet Mr Flamel. When Dumbledore had gone they handed him a scroll ready to be keyed into his blood, done in a rush Max had keyed his blood into it and they had told him it could only be accessed by him. Unfortunately for Ed it wasn’t the stone he was looking for it was basically the impure version.

Back at the station Max and Laura had decided to scare Harry’s relatives. They had lost the argument to take Harry with them. Max was still wondering how she had lost, it was one of those things that rarely happened. 

“Come on boy we haven’t got all day” came the obnoxious voice of fat whale number one aka uncle Vernon. Max helped with the trolley while Laura just followed talking to Harry and Draco.

“You call your nephew ‘boy’ what kind of whale are you?” said Max.

“That’s none of you business”

“That you see is where you’re wrong,” said Laura.

“We are his friends and if we find you’ve been mistreating him-” threatened Max.

“-and we will” added Laura.

“Then the consequences will not be nice,” finished Max using a tiny bit of chakra to make her eyes change into a wolves as she glared. 

“What can a bunch of kids do? Especially a bunch freaks like you” Just then Itachi landed behind them his Sharingan visible through his mask. They had used a minor genjutsu that worked a bit like a notice-me-not charm so no one would notice.

“Who are you people?” asked a panicked Dudley.

“We can become your worst nightmare, should you provoke us, you leave Harry alone and we won’t have a reason to do anything. Heed my warning, it will be your only one,” said Max the chakra in her eyes making the colours swirl in a hypnotising way, all of her body language screamed dangerous as it did on Itachi and Laura and even Draco.

“We will be watching.” With that Max took Draco and Laura and shushined away followed by Itachi. Truth was they shushined back to the platform nine and three quarters. Itachi had a clone follow them just to make sure.

Since the ninjas had a few hours to burn they went their separate ways again, Max and Laura headed for the Thames just to relive some memories. What they didn’t expect were their old families sitting in the park they had been planning to muck around in. They also didn’t expect one of their parents to come over and talk to them.

“Are you lost?” Ok it really wasn’t what they were expecting they we expecting something more heartfelt, but then again they didn’t exist as their offspring.

“No we’re older than we look we get this all the time, we just managed to get short genes,” lied Laura smoothly.

“Still London’s a dangerous place”

“We live in a dangerous place they call America, home of violence and crime, we know,” said Max slowly as if she was talking to a small child. She was remembering why she was resentful of her parents back in their old lives. They were so overprotective even if they didn’t know someone.

“You don’t have much of an accent. Still I wouldn’t feel right leaving you on your own.” Max looked a bit puzzled something didn’t seem right.

“Max, you should see this,” said Laura tugging on her sleeve Max looked around to see a poster with her face on it the caption said ‘wanted for information on a shooting’.

“Sh.t, how could I have missed that, lets go,” they turned to leave only to notice quite a few blacked out cars with people heading towards them, some in military uniform and most with guns pointing at them.

“We are so screwed,” said Laura.

“Thank you captain obvious,” replied Max.

“Fine you’re screwed; I’m not mentioned on the poster”

“But your with me, you may be connected”

“I hate you”

“I hate me too,” by this time they were surrounded, the person Max recognised as Mrs Jones stepped forward.

“You need to come with me”

“How do you plan on making that work?” asked Max, reasons why it wouldn’t producing themselves in her mind.

“You don’t seem scared of these guns one might accidently shoot your friend.” Max almost laughed, if it came to that she would move in front of her in a heartbeat. She could heal herself, Laura couldn’t.

“Good luck explaining that to the Americans, we’re American citizens so if your trigger happy buddies feel the need to shoot someone use someone else as target practice.” Max grabbed Laura’s arm and rushed one of the men and burst through, taking them by surprise. They ran for a few streets then went into an alley way so Max could Henge into someone else. What they didn’t notice was a blue police box further up the alley way.

\----

They met up with Itachi who told them Harry was having a hard time so they headed for surrey. At number 4 Privet Drive they headed up the drive and Max knocked on the door while Itachi and Laura headed around to below Harry’s window were they saw bars.

“What do you want?”

“I warned you not to treat him badly,” said Max her face void of any emotion.

“Where are your friends,” the whale snarled, he would not be intimidated by a girl.

“Watching”

“What exactly can you do? You’re a child and a freak.” Max withdrew her wand and Vernon paled.

“A freak with a wand”

“Put that thing away”

“No.” Vernon had had enough he lunged for her only to miss as Max sidestepped. The doorway now clear Max wandered in and up the stairs to the room with the locks on and the cat flap. She opened the cat flap a bit with her foot.

“Harry? Move away from the door”

“Max?”

“Yo.” There was a scuffle as Harry move back.

“I’m away from the door.” Max took a small step back and kicked the door, it came of its hinges splintering the wood around the locks. Inside was Harry, lying on what could barely be called a bed, he was sporting some new bruises.

“You want to get out of here?” Max asked holding out a hand.

“But Dumbledore said” Harry said, worried, he took her hand and winced as she pulled him up.

“Is Dumbledore here?”

“Well no but he said it had blood wards”

“I have something better, let’s get your stuff” 

“It’s down in the cupboard under the stairs.” Max walked calmly down the stairs were Vernon was standing.

“I will not have another freak in my house”

“First of all I don’t need to use magic to kick your ass and secondly I’m taking Harry away. Be happy.” A chakra enhanced push shoved him into the kitchen. She yanked open the cupboard and grabbed the trunk, lifting it with ease she took it up the stairs and opened the window after rearranging the bars. 

She dumped the trunk out the window and laughed a bit as it hit Itachi in the side of the head. It would still be less conspicuous than taking it via the front door with how nosy the neighbours.

“Yo Laura, Ryuu we’re moving out before the Dumbles comes. Be ready, if he does get here we meet at point one.” Itachi took the trunk and Laura and shunshined away. Max and Harry left the house and walked down the street, they had barely made it two streets along before the headmaster appeared before them.

“Harry needs to stay in his aunt’s house, it’s the safest place for him no one would be able to get him”

“Yeah ‘cause no one would dare go near petunia, she might shriek at them” Max sneered.

“He needs to go back”

“It is no longer school. Don’t even think about citing the contract, the mission is complete, you have no say what so ever.”

“I’m his guardian,” said Dumbledore pulling his trump card.

“Ok then I’ll just have to kidnap him,” said Max brightly, she glared at him before shusining away with Harry to where Itachi took Laura and Harry’s trunk. They landed in a park in a nearby town. 

“While you were in the loos on the train Me ‘n’ Draco were talking if we felt that you were being mistreated he would take you in for the holidays. I would but I can’t, anyway I have a portkey for you it will take you outside Malfoy manor when your ready say ‘take me away’,” explained Laura after she handed him a marble, Max hadn’t been in the conversation a she had been sitting on the roof. Harry took his stuff and held the marble.

“Thanks, I’ll see you next year hopefully, take me home,” were Harry’s words before he was whisked away.

“Hopefully,” said Laura after he had disappeared.

“We need to get to the airport,” said Max so they left shushining most of the way in short bursts.

\----

They landed in America later and headed to the SGC to go home. Once through the gate Max headed to the village faster than the rest of them, she wanted to see every one and Anko would never forgive her if Max didn’t go straight to see her.

Back at the village there was a collective feeling of impending doom. It was explained when they saw a blur screaming and covered in orange paint. Max headed to the Hokage’s office to report. Afterwards she headed to her house to find Anko lying on the couch looking a bit drunk.

“Hey Anko did you leave any for me?” Max dodged the kunai that headed in her direction. For some reason Max thought she might wake Anko up properly with an ice cold bucket of water dumped over her, that is why five seconds after following through with her idea ma was now running for her life. The others had gotten their payment and gone home, Itachi had gone back to be a missing nin for a bit.

It had been a week since they had gotten back and so far they had only gotten D ranks missions, this would soon change. 

It wasn’t long before team 7.5 got a new mission just to get them to be more of a team. They were escorting an actress to snow country. Now why did that sound familiar? It had been a few year since Max had last been there and that was when she was in her ANBU team. 

Then it clicked, this was the mission in the movie. They had been sent to see the film and were waiting by the fence. They saw the horse jump over and Max groaned as Sasuke and Naruto followed. This whole mission would be troublesome. Especially if she started acting like Shikamaru. 

The chase ended and Max watched as the person explained everything. They ended up on the boat after some random things happened including Kakashi hypnotising the actress. Max was bored and seasick. She never liked boats; they were on the list next to trains. She was glad when they stopped at an island of ice and snow. She only realised what was going to happen next when the three snow ninjas showed themselves.

“So Kakashi are you going to run again” asked the tall male one.

“Ah even Max is here but not the other two” said the female one.

“And she’s going to kick your ass from here to snow country, wait uh from here to wind country”

“She’s still cocky; you went so cocky when that building was burning around you with no escape” said the female snow nin, Max was wondering if she should have learnt their names.

\--Flashback

As Kakashi’s sledded away with the princess, Max was battling some other ninjas to cover the rest of her teams escape. The room is burning up and the snow ninja escapes blocking the exit. 

Max was panicking there is no visible escape, the flames are getting closer and Max was cursing the fact she never learnt a water jutsu. The floor collapsed and she fell to a different level away from the flames. She then escaped the collapsing building and helped Kakashi by covering him with the help of Itachi while Kakashi took the princess away. Yuri was on the other side of the building helping the servants escape.

\---End flashback

“I have to return the favour then but instead of burning you I’ll just reduce you to pulp seeing as you have that chakra amour that would nullify most of my attacks” 

“How do you know that?”

“I have my sources, so shall we dance?”

“Naruto! Sasuke! Get the others back to the boats,” yelled Kakashi as the trio of snow nins attacked, the skinny male went for Kakashi while the female headed for Max, the other male went to attack the fleeing people. 

Max dodged the female ninjas techniques knowing what would happen with most of them if they hit. She landed her own hits using the fire she loved so much and aiming for the face and thing on her back. She withdrew her scythe ready to slice up the snow nin.

“Yuri’s dead then?” asked the woman in her taunting manner more stating it then asking. She sent ice block shooting out of the ground at Max. They traded more techniques each getting more destructive.

When Max saw the first white whale appeared she headed back for the ship putting her scythe back and grabbing Naruto and Sasuke as she ran passed them.

“Running away again, coward,” taunted the woman.

“I prefer tactical retreat, ready to beat your ass another day, besides I would be stupid to fight on your turf unless I know how to change it,” retorted Max as the boat cast off and Kakashi jumped of the broken island.

“What was that about,” asked Naruto.

“Nothing important”

“I have a question.” Naruto was up to something, the innocent look told her so much, this would not end well, Naruto’s questions were normally a bad idea to answer.

“Yes?”

“Where do babies come from?” ‘Kami hates me’ decided Max, Tora must be laughing at her, nearby Kakashi had been listening and was trying not to laugh, he had heard the story.

“Why don’t you ask Kakashi?” asked Max hopefully trying to avoid the question

“I did, he told me to ask you.” ‘ok Kami may not hate me but Kakashi does’ Max decided.

“He did, did he?” asked Max gritting her teeth.

“So where do babies come from?” By now Sasuke had come over to see what was so interesting.

“Why don’t you ask Tsunade when we get back?”

“But I want to know why now” 

“But why ask me?”

“Kakashi said that you knew”

“What does Kakashi know; all he does is read porn and is lazy”

“Please tell me,” he asked pouting his eyes widened and teary his lower lip trembling.

“No,” said Max flat out ignoring all the tricks Naruto was using, she taut him most of them.

“Why not?”

“Did I ever say I knew, nope you just assumed which makes an ass out of u and me”

“Do you know?” asked Naruto innocently.

“You never denied knowing,” added Sasuke.

“No, go ask Kakashi, he knows, even if he doesn’t just read his book”

“How do you know it’s in the book?” asked Sasuke being entirely too perceptive.

“The sign on the back gives hints”

“Max just tell them,” said Kakashi from his perch on the rigging.

“Why?”

“So you do know” said Naruto triumphantly.

“I am so going to kill you,” said Max glaring at Kakashi.

“So will you tell us?” asked Naruto hopefully.

“Fine but next time you want to know something ask Kakashi,” the two boys nodded and sat down.

“When a man loves a woman, or another man, wait two men can't make babies, anyway the man and woman go all lovey dovey and … play a game … causing the woman to have a strange reaction and the baby starts growing inside and 9 months later the woman gives birth. The end,” said Max, truth was she was amazed she kept a straight face during that. 

It’s later when she saw Kakashi hand money over to Naruto she got annoyed.


End file.
